Gardener's Paradise

Shaffer’s Greenhouse is a family affair

By DEBI HADDAD — For The Express
JERSEY SHORE — Spring gardening season arrives once a year for most of us. For the Shaffer family – it’s a year-long event.

Rick and Chris Shaffer established Shaffer’s Greenhouse 33 years ago, and it has become a local springtime institution for area residents.

The first greenhouse was constructed on the family’s property in 1975, adjacent to their home.

“My grandfather wanted some vegetable plants for his garden and I built the greenhouse to start the plants,” Rick said. “We sold the extra plants, and the following year we built another greenhouse and the next year another greenhouse. We now have nine greenhouses and I feel we have gotten as big as we want to.”

In the beginning it was “a lot of hard work, a lot of mistakes, and a lot of praying,” Rick said.

The Shaffers raised three children — John, Jennifer and Jamie — on this working farm located next to the original homestead where Rick grew up.

“When we got married and I wanted to build a house... my dad said, just take some land next to the road,” Rick explained.

Unknown to Rick at the time, the location given him 38 years ago would become the perfect location for the family business.

The Shaffer children brought friends home from school to help with the endless farm chores and they all pitched in and enjoyed it, Rick said. John would help transplant plants before and after school ... and wait on customers, too, his dad said.

The original homestead milked 120 dairy cows daily. The dairy business is over and the farm now handles 100 beef cattle, Rick said.

The greenhouse business begins every October, starting with one heated greenhouse and growing as the plants do. By April, all nine greenhouses are heated and in operation. Cuttings come from around the world for the flowering plants and start in 200 cell trays. Seedlings are planted at different times depending on the plant variety and coaxed along with care and accurate watering.

“My wife Chris has done 90 percent of all the transplanting since we started,” Rick said.

“We also have some wonderful friends and family who help out with the transplanting,” Chris added. “We always have a good time together – laughing and working.”

“I remember the first year we were in business, May 1975, when Jennifer was born. I was milking the cows and Chris was waiting on customers. Bruce McKeen and Ruth Barto were here when the labor pains started. Chris excused herself and calmly came and got me and we headed for the hospital,” Rick said with a smile.

Chris said she couldn’t leave for the hospital immediately though, because 4-year-old John had to get a ladder and show her some baby robins in a tree first.

The Shaffers fondly recall memories of their children growing-up on the farm and helping to establish the family business.

When the youngest, Jamie, was 7, she was helping push seeds to the starter cells and found a 1778 penny in the soil, Rick recalled.

He explained he mixes the rich farm soil from near the Susquehanna with peat to start the seedlings and has found old coins and arrowheads throughout the years.

“We still have that penny,” he said.

Being raised on a farm followed the Shaffer children into adulthood.

“John received a degree in Horticulture and Jennifer in Environmental Technology,” Chris said, adding they are all very knowledgeable and help out from time to time. Jamie will be graduating this week with a degree in Nursing from Penn Tech.

“Any of the three of them could take over this business” Rick said. “When they were kids, they couldn’t wait to give their teachers a plant from the greenhouse on holidays.”

And those greenhouses still accommodate a wide range of vegetables and annual and perennial plantings. Long-time customers still sit their plants on the original counter... built 33 years ago.

Rick, 59, has no plans to retire, and he hasn’t left his farm for seven years. The last time, he said was when daughter Jennifer got married on the beach in New Jersey.

“I get-up around 4 a.m. every day,” Rick said. “When you love what you do, you don’t need a vacation.”

Rick and Chris greet all their customers personally and answer their gardening questions. Sometimes their children help out, along with Sandy, Rick’s sister, who travels from New York to help out in the busy springtime.

It’s the people that make life at the Shaffer Greenhouse such a joy for the couple.

“We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for all of our loyal customers,” Rick said.